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♥ The Book Love Tag! ♥

So, I’ve seen this tag in a few places recently, and I wasn’t tagged for it, but I decided to do it anyway, since it’s Valentine’s Day, and it looked like fun (mostly the “fun” part, though). This tag was created by Anette from Anette Reads, and I first stumbled across it on Cátia’s blog, The Girl Who Read Too Much.

1) Your favourite book couple:

There are a lot of pairings that I really like, but I don’t really have any absolute favourites… My favourite pairing at any given time tends to be the one I liked most in whatever book I’m currently reading, or have just read and am obsessing over.

A few that have stuck with me, however: Vin & Elend from the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson; Celaena & Chaol from Sarah J. Maas’ Throne of Glass series; and, of course, Ron & Hermione from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, which I’m sure many people count among their OTPs. 😉

2) Your top 3 book boyfriends/girlfriends:

I… don’t really have any. ❓ There are a lot of characters in the books I read that I really love as love interests, but I’d rather ship them with other characters than with myself… I did at one point have the hugest crush on Briar from Tamora Pierce’s Emelan books, though. (Okay, maybe I still do. 😳 )

3) Imagine your favorite book couple. Who would propose, and how? (If there’s already been a proposal: who would be more into organising the wedding?)

Sticking with the couples I mentioned in question 1:

Vin & Elend – Elend, and Elend. Or at least, if they’d had a wedding in the conventional sense. 😉

Celaena & Chaol – Hmm… Chaol would propose, and I think they’d organise it together. Celaena would take charge of most of the aesthetic things – like where the wedding would be, how to decorate, and what the bridesmaids would wear, etc – while Chaol did the boring things like actually arranging these things. And vetoing Celaena’s more outrageous suggestions (or trying to, at least).

Ron & Hermione – I feel like Ron was probably the one who proposed, though not without significant prodding. And I expect that Hermione (and Molly!) did most of the work of actually planning the wedding.

4) Unpopular opinions time! Name a popular pairing you can’t stand.

I sense that this opinion will be very unpopular, but: Percy & Annabeth in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson & the Olympians and Heroes of Olympus series. 😳 I actually dislike most of the pairings in Rick Riordan’s books (with the surprising exception of Leo & Calypso in The Blood of Olympus); I just don’t think he writes romance very well…

I also really disliked the romance between Celaena & Rowan in Queen of Shadows by Sarah J. Maas (and not just because I’m a Chaolaena girl!). The dynamic between them (which was a big part of why I loved Heir of Fire so much), was just completely altered, and not for the better.

5) What’s your favorite and least favorite romance trope?

There are so many romantic tropes that it’s difficult to pick favourites, and I can like most tropes, if I feel they’re done well… But, in the interest of actually having an answer to this question… I’m quite fond of arranged marriages, and forbidden love, and I usually dislike insta-love and love triangles. I just come across them way too often.

6) Do you ship non-canon couples often? Name some if you do.

I actually sometimes get more invested in non-canon couples than in canon ones, because I put so much energy into rooting for them. Some of the ones I feel most strongly about (and have for a while) are: Sansa & Sandor (from A Song of Ice & Fire by George R.R. Martin); Arya & Gendry (also from ASoIaF); Will & Brân (from Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence); Kuroko & Aomine (from the Kuroko no Basuke manga by Tadatoshi Fujimaki); and Gabriel & Nathan (from Sally Green’s Half Life trilogy).

7) Your opinion on love triangles. Go!

They’re over-done, and rarely done well (it’s usually really obvious who the main character is going to pick the whole way through).

8) Favourite and least favorite love triangle?

Favourite: Will, Tessa & Jem in Cassandra Clare’s Infernal Devices trilogy (the only really excellent love triangle that I can think of). Least favourite: Hmm…? Maybe Edward, Bella & Jacob from the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer, though I don’t really consider that to be a proper love triangle, since Jacob obviously never had a chance with Bella. She even told him so. Repeatedly.

9) Sometimes romance just isn’t the way to go. Favorite friendship?

I really, really loved the friendship between Rowan & Celaena in Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas… The direction it took in Queen of Shadows was such a shame. 😦

10) What’s your favorite scene with your bookish OTP?

Vin & Elend – their first meeting at the ball in The Final Empire. So cute! XD

Celaena & Chaol – pretty much the whole of Crown of Midnight. Just… guh (*turns to goo inside*). There was also a really hilarious scene in The Assassin & the Underworld (one of the prequel novellas) where they met at a party, Celaena drunkenly hit on Dorian, and Chaol just stood there Not Approving – but none of them knew each other at that point, and even if they had, they were all in disguise…